Monday, March 7, 2016

Violence In Iraq, February 2016

Violence in Iraq has been going down since 2015. There was a
short spike in January 2016 as the Islamic State launched counter attacks
across the country after it lost Ramadi. That is now over, and the steady
decline in both security incidents and casualties has returned.

There were 549 security incidents reported in the press in
February. That was the second lowest figure in the last 14 months. In January
2015 there was an average of 29.3 attacks per day. That has steadily gone down
to 18.9 in February 2016. The downward trend in incidents shows that the
Islamic State has been on the defensive for over a year now in Iraq.

The media had 1,281 people killed and 1,566 wounded during
the month. 7 Sahwa, 21 Peshmerga, 53 Hashd al-Shaabi, 178 members of the Iraqi
Security Forces (ISF), and 1,022 civilians died, and another 3 members of the
British Special Air Service (SAS), 9 Sahwa, 15 Peshmerga, 67 Hashd, 151 ISF,
1,209 civilians, and 112 Peshmerga and civilians were injured. That last figure
came from two IS rocket attacks in Ninewa, which did not break down how many
Kurdish fighters and civilians were wounded, just the total number. The real
number of casualties is much higher then what gets reported.

Anbar remained the one exception to the declining violence
in Iraq. Attacks have been going up there since December from 2.4 per day to
3.0 in January to 3.1 in February. That was the result of the loss of Ramadi,
and the government’s push into the eastern and northern suburbs of the city.
The Islamic State counter attacked in response, which continues to the present,
and accounts for the increase in incidents there.

240 people died and 150 were wounded in Anbar in February.
That included 1 executed in Hit, 3 executed in Juwiba, 16 in Fallujah, and 65
bodies found in two mass graves in Albu Diab and Sufiya. 6 suicide car bombs
also left 13 Hashd, 15 ISF, and 56 soldiers dead and 6 Hashd, 7 ISF, and 27
soldiers wounded. The government claimed it destroyed 4 motorcycle bombs, 41
suicide car bombs, 66 car bombs, and killed 69 suicide bombers, but those are
all likely inflated. The government exaggerates the losses it inflicts upon the
insurgents for propaganda purposes.

Attacks in Babil have been going up and down with February
being one of the latter. There were 24 incidents during the month, killing 25
and wounding 85. One change from previous months was that IS was focusing upon
high casualty terrorist attacks upon markets. Two were bombed the second week
of the month, two more the third week, and five the last week.

Since the end of 2015 IS has been focusing more and more on
Baghdad. There were 7.0 incidents per day in October, climbing to 8.5 in
January and 8.4 in February. 381 died and 985 were wounded. Unlike before,
almost all of these casualties came from IEDs, sticky bombs, and suicide
bombers as there was only one successful car bombing. What’s new is a return of
high profile assaults by the insurgents. That included two suicide bombers attacking
a mosque in north Baghdad killing 15 and wounding 50, two suicide bombers detonating
at a market in the east leaving 73 fatalities and 112 injured, and a
coordinated attack
upon an army base in Aub Ghraib at the end of the month that included five car
bombs, four of which were destroyed that left another 12 dead and 35 wounded. Now
that IS no longer has the capability to seize territory in Iraq it is focusing
upon terrorist and insurgent attacks to undermine the government’s credibility
and stoke sectarian tensions.

In February, the south had the most incidents with 86,
followed by 63 in the east, 44 in the north, 32 in the west, and 21 in the
center. Along with IS there was also criminal, vigilante and Hashd activity
leading to 10 kidnappings, 19 robberies, and 58 bodies being dumped.

IS has been attempting to stoke sectarian tensions in Diyala
as well. In the last two months the group launched two mass casualty suicide
bombings in Mutqadiya. At the end of February one hit a funeral that
killed 38 and wounded 58. The month before, it bombed a café that led to
several days of retaliatory attacks by the Hashd against the city’s Sunni
population.

Kirkuk witnessed the most violence since 2014. For most of
last year there was an average of one attack per day or less. In February there
was 1.7. The major cause of the increase was IS cracking down upon the
population in Hawija in the southern section of the governorate. There were
repeated claims that people were trying to escape the area. The insurgents
responded with weekly executions totaling 89 people.

There was one news report that Turkish airplanes killed
three civilians and wounded two more in an air strike upon the northern section
of Kurdistan. The Turks were targeting areas under the control of the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK).

In Ninewa IS carried out a number of operations against the
Peshmerga, while executing several hundred people. There were 21 attacks upon
the Kurds in the province, including three alleged chlorine rocket attacks.
Those left 18 Peshmerga dead and 12 wounded, along with 112 Peshmergaand
civilians wounded by the missile strikes. IS also executed 379 people in the
Mosul area.

Violence has been steadily declining in Salahaddin. There
was an average of 1.9 incidents per day in February, the lowest figure in over
two years. Part of that was due to the fact that the government has not
launched any major offensives there since the retaking of Baiji. That was
because many pro-Iranian Hashd forces were pulled out of Iraq for Syria. There
was still fighting outside of Samarra in the center, in the Baiji sector, the
Alas and Ajeel oil fields and Makhoul Mountains in the northeast. IS also
carried out terrorist and harassing attacks in the south. Those together led to
52 dead and 104 wounded.

Finally, there was a major dip in car bombings. In February
there were only 9 successful vehicle borne improvised explosive devices
(VBIEDs). In January there were 36 and 26 in December. The security forces
claimed they destroyed 135 VBIEDs in February, which was similar to previous
months, but those numbers are exaggerations for propaganda purposes.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the politics, economics, security, culture and history of Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com